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I guess that's it then. And what a non-event it proved to be. Six episodes attempting to invoke a monster who only put in a few sporadic appearances. Nobody seemed to achieve anything, there was no specific threat - or at least not in the last half - and lots of things seemed to happen for no reason at all. Stu The Lab Assistant was turned old, then suddenly was young again; people ran very slowly to indicate time disturbances, but nobody seemed particularly bothered about it; the Doctor kept shouting that the entire universe was at risk, but there was no real sense of drama. So the universe is at risk. Again. Why, though? Because the Master wants power? Then let the Master be a proper threat. Don't suddenly send half the cast off to Atlantis to argue with priests for two episodes, and achieve nothing but the destruction of the place. It's not like nobody knows that Atlantis was destroyed, after all. Episodes five and six were splendidly pointless.
For starters, episode five begins with one of the most rubbish cliffhanger resolutions that I've seen in a long time. At the end of episode four, the Master consigns the Doctor - courtesy of The Giant Pigeon Of Dangerous Time - to the void. He's lost there in eternal nothingness. But all Jo has to do is pull a switch on the TARDIS console, and he's back again, as though nothing had happened. Huh?! And it's not even performed well. Jo is convinced that the Doctor is lost to her forever, but suddenly he's speaking in her head, through the TARDIS. "Oh, I'm so happy!" she shouts, not really sounding in the least bit so. "Go to the third panel on the console," he tells her, and she goes not only there, but also to the control he hasn't told her to operate yet. Good old prophetic Jo. Turns out said control is a box marked "Extreme Emergency", which contains a lever. A magic lever, apparently. What a load of utter nonsense. Mind you, it does allow for a lovely bit where Jo asks what the other voices she can hear inside her head are, and the Doctor tells her that they're his subconscious thoughts; and not to listen to them too closely, as he's not very proud of some of them. That's not enough to excuse the rubbish lever-in-a-box thing, though. It really isn't.
One thing that strikes me - just to wander off down a sideline for the moment - is that the Third Doctor never seems to address the Master by name. They made a cheap joke out of Ten doing so, in the series just gone by; and Five called him "Master" all the time. Three never does, though. It means that there's a totally different dynamic between Three and the Master than there is between Five and the Master, which is an interesting character point. It underlines not only the difference in character between Three and Five, but also between the two different incarnations of the Master that they respectively encounter. The one that Five meets is less sinister, and arguably less powerful. Less masterly, really. I wonder if Five would have been so free to use that name if it was the previous version he'd come up against? We'll never know of course. Anyway, I'm digressing again. Bad habit.
Anyways, off we all decamp to Atlantis, which is a shame, as frankly I'd rather stay in England with the UNIT crew. The Atlantis scenes are beautifully acted. Hippias, the sort of priesty type bloke, is quite astonishingly annoying, but I don't know that that's the performance rather than the character itself. The others are wonderful, though. Krasis, the priest who is won over to the Master's cause, is brilliantly self-serving and cold; Dalios the king is wonderfully regal, and the scene where he betters the Master is terrific; and Galleia the queen is great. Oh Ingrid Pitt, if only you'd known what lay in your Who future. Here she's falling head over heels in lust with the Master, and regretting it as her civilisation collapses around her - and twelve years later she's karate-kicking a green pantomime horse. Badly. Still, it's an interesting career move.
The main problem with the Atlantis episodes is that I fail to see the point of them. The Master is apparently after the crystal that will allow him to control Kronos, otherwise known as The Giant Pigeon Of Dangerous Time, but he never gets it. The only time it's within his grasp is for a brief moment towards the end of episode six, where he shouts a bit, Atlantis starts to crumble, and he dashes into his TARDIS and buggers off. Well what's the point? Why is the Master never enough for these writers as a bad guy? They always have to introduce some higher power that he utterly fails to control, and which is claimed to be a huge threat, but never really is. I'm filing Kronos The Giant Pigeon with Mr Boring And Shouty Dæmon, under "Threats That Aren't Very Threaty, And Shouldn't Have Been Bothered With". Yes, it was nice to see Atlantis, and experience some lovely acting - and Dave Prowse (hurrah!) as a rather nice Minotaur. But for goodness sakes, next time make it necessary to the plot. And let's have the UNIT team actually involved in the story if they're going to be in it. Why have them around for three and a half episodes achieveing sod all; why turn Benton into a baby for a cheap joke; why nearly blow Mike up for... what? A scene of him covered in blood, being jolly heroic. Well, okay. I'll allow that. Anything that lets Mike have a Boy's Own moment is fine by me. But otherwise the UNIT boys needn't have been there. It's a shame, because the story started off really well, with the Master up to his old tricks again, doing something naughty with time. But it went nowhere. Some lovely set pieces added up to nothing. Jo is trapped with a Minotaur! But all that happens is that it headbutts a wall and - well there's a coincidence - the crystal everybody is looking for is on the other side. The Minotaur throws Hippias through a mirror, and the Doctor says he's dead without even bothering to go and look. I know he's annoying, Doc, but even so... The Master finally gets his hands on the crystal, and... yeah, well. Already covered that. It all winds up in a Mexican stand-off in the TARDIS - after the Doctor has run off without even trying to help the Atlanteans. Turning the Master's machine off might have been a start. Okay, unlikely to work, but you could have tried, Doc. "I'll smash my TARDIS into yours!" shouts the Doctor. "No you won't!" shouts the Master. "Yes I will!" shouts the Doctor. "Go ahead!" shouts Jo. "It's the only way to save the universe!" Is it? Oh. Right. Bad crystal. Powers of Kronos. Etc, etc, etc. Except there's no sense of urgency, and nobody but Jo seems remotely concerned that the entire universe is about to end. The Master and the Doctor just seem interested in shouting at each other a lot. Eventually Jo gets annoyed with the pair of them, and presses the "I'm Going To Smash My TARDIS Into Yours" button, which makes precisely nothing happen. Well, okay - it sends them both into Kronos Land, which isn't what the Doctor's been saying all along will happen, but I suppose is slightly better than them all being killed. Kronos is no longer a giant pigeon, but instead is a woman, who despite having eaten the Doctor once, and been billed all along as a Really Bad Thing, now says that she isn't after all, and off home you go Doc and Jo. In fact the only power that Kronos does seem to possess is the power to turn the Master from his usual charismatic, powerful self, into a snivelling coward. Really, I don't see the point in these scenes at all. They accomplish nothing. But then you could say the same for quite a lot of this adventure, really. Six episodes are definitely too much for it. As a pure historical, set in Atlantis, it might have worked. As a UNIT adventure it might have worked. As both, spread out over twice the screen time it needs, it doesn't work at all. Not for me. Promising start, though, I'll give it that much. I won't give it much else, but I will give it that.
Jo dashes to the Emergency Cliffhanger switch.
And as if by magic, the shopkeeper appeared.
King Dalios. Silly hair, good king.
Hippias, doing a pointy thingy.
Queen Galleia, getting an eyeful of the Master
The Master's got a girlfriend! The Master's got a girlfriend!
Whether he wants one or not.
Jo checks out the latest in Atlantean fashions.
Jo and her wig hide from the Minotaur.
It's Dave Prowse! Hurrah!
The Master and Galleia plot naughtiness.
I love that the guards let the Doctor spread his cloak on the ground before they chained him up.
The Doctor reminisces about the day K'anpo fed him LSD.
Nothing in particular. Just a cool shot.
More LSD-taking. This time in Kronosville.
Baby Benton, yet another pointless plot-twist.
So that's that, then. Lots of rubbish jokes, plot strands that go nowhere, and more daft machinations for the Master. He's great, is the Master. I just wish that the writers were up to the task of showing it. Still, at least none of them have equalled the indignity foisted upon him by Russell T Davies, so there's that to be thankful for.
Back to black and white next, I think. :)
For starters, episode five begins with one of the most rubbish cliffhanger resolutions that I've seen in a long time. At the end of episode four, the Master consigns the Doctor - courtesy of The Giant Pigeon Of Dangerous Time - to the void. He's lost there in eternal nothingness. But all Jo has to do is pull a switch on the TARDIS console, and he's back again, as though nothing had happened. Huh?! And it's not even performed well. Jo is convinced that the Doctor is lost to her forever, but suddenly he's speaking in her head, through the TARDIS. "Oh, I'm so happy!" she shouts, not really sounding in the least bit so. "Go to the third panel on the console," he tells her, and she goes not only there, but also to the control he hasn't told her to operate yet. Good old prophetic Jo. Turns out said control is a box marked "Extreme Emergency", which contains a lever. A magic lever, apparently. What a load of utter nonsense. Mind you, it does allow for a lovely bit where Jo asks what the other voices she can hear inside her head are, and the Doctor tells her that they're his subconscious thoughts; and not to listen to them too closely, as he's not very proud of some of them. That's not enough to excuse the rubbish lever-in-a-box thing, though. It really isn't.
One thing that strikes me - just to wander off down a sideline for the moment - is that the Third Doctor never seems to address the Master by name. They made a cheap joke out of Ten doing so, in the series just gone by; and Five called him "Master" all the time. Three never does, though. It means that there's a totally different dynamic between Three and the Master than there is between Five and the Master, which is an interesting character point. It underlines not only the difference in character between Three and Five, but also between the two different incarnations of the Master that they respectively encounter. The one that Five meets is less sinister, and arguably less powerful. Less masterly, really. I wonder if Five would have been so free to use that name if it was the previous version he'd come up against? We'll never know of course. Anyway, I'm digressing again. Bad habit.
Anyways, off we all decamp to Atlantis, which is a shame, as frankly I'd rather stay in England with the UNIT crew. The Atlantis scenes are beautifully acted. Hippias, the sort of priesty type bloke, is quite astonishingly annoying, but I don't know that that's the performance rather than the character itself. The others are wonderful, though. Krasis, the priest who is won over to the Master's cause, is brilliantly self-serving and cold; Dalios the king is wonderfully regal, and the scene where he betters the Master is terrific; and Galleia the queen is great. Oh Ingrid Pitt, if only you'd known what lay in your Who future. Here she's falling head over heels in lust with the Master, and regretting it as her civilisation collapses around her - and twelve years later she's karate-kicking a green pantomime horse. Badly. Still, it's an interesting career move.
The main problem with the Atlantis episodes is that I fail to see the point of them. The Master is apparently after the crystal that will allow him to control Kronos, otherwise known as The Giant Pigeon Of Dangerous Time, but he never gets it. The only time it's within his grasp is for a brief moment towards the end of episode six, where he shouts a bit, Atlantis starts to crumble, and he dashes into his TARDIS and buggers off. Well what's the point? Why is the Master never enough for these writers as a bad guy? They always have to introduce some higher power that he utterly fails to control, and which is claimed to be a huge threat, but never really is. I'm filing Kronos The Giant Pigeon with Mr Boring And Shouty Dæmon, under "Threats That Aren't Very Threaty, And Shouldn't Have Been Bothered With". Yes, it was nice to see Atlantis, and experience some lovely acting - and Dave Prowse (hurrah!) as a rather nice Minotaur. But for goodness sakes, next time make it necessary to the plot. And let's have the UNIT team actually involved in the story if they're going to be in it. Why have them around for three and a half episodes achieveing sod all; why turn Benton into a baby for a cheap joke; why nearly blow Mike up for... what? A scene of him covered in blood, being jolly heroic. Well, okay. I'll allow that. Anything that lets Mike have a Boy's Own moment is fine by me. But otherwise the UNIT boys needn't have been there. It's a shame, because the story started off really well, with the Master up to his old tricks again, doing something naughty with time. But it went nowhere. Some lovely set pieces added up to nothing. Jo is trapped with a Minotaur! But all that happens is that it headbutts a wall and - well there's a coincidence - the crystal everybody is looking for is on the other side. The Minotaur throws Hippias through a mirror, and the Doctor says he's dead without even bothering to go and look. I know he's annoying, Doc, but even so... The Master finally gets his hands on the crystal, and... yeah, well. Already covered that. It all winds up in a Mexican stand-off in the TARDIS - after the Doctor has run off without even trying to help the Atlanteans. Turning the Master's machine off might have been a start. Okay, unlikely to work, but you could have tried, Doc. "I'll smash my TARDIS into yours!" shouts the Doctor. "No you won't!" shouts the Master. "Yes I will!" shouts the Doctor. "Go ahead!" shouts Jo. "It's the only way to save the universe!" Is it? Oh. Right. Bad crystal. Powers of Kronos. Etc, etc, etc. Except there's no sense of urgency, and nobody but Jo seems remotely concerned that the entire universe is about to end. The Master and the Doctor just seem interested in shouting at each other a lot. Eventually Jo gets annoyed with the pair of them, and presses the "I'm Going To Smash My TARDIS Into Yours" button, which makes precisely nothing happen. Well, okay - it sends them both into Kronos Land, which isn't what the Doctor's been saying all along will happen, but I suppose is slightly better than them all being killed. Kronos is no longer a giant pigeon, but instead is a woman, who despite having eaten the Doctor once, and been billed all along as a Really Bad Thing, now says that she isn't after all, and off home you go Doc and Jo. In fact the only power that Kronos does seem to possess is the power to turn the Master from his usual charismatic, powerful self, into a snivelling coward. Really, I don't see the point in these scenes at all. They accomplish nothing. But then you could say the same for quite a lot of this adventure, really. Six episodes are definitely too much for it. As a pure historical, set in Atlantis, it might have worked. As a UNIT adventure it might have worked. As both, spread out over twice the screen time it needs, it doesn't work at all. Not for me. Promising start, though, I'll give it that much. I won't give it much else, but I will give it that.
Jo dashes to the Emergency Cliffhanger switch.
And as if by magic, the shopkeeper appeared.
King Dalios. Silly hair, good king.
Hippias, doing a pointy thingy.
Queen Galleia, getting an eyeful of the Master
The Master's got a girlfriend! The Master's got a girlfriend!
Whether he wants one or not.
Jo checks out the latest in Atlantean fashions.
Jo and her wig hide from the Minotaur.
It's Dave Prowse! Hurrah!
The Master and Galleia plot naughtiness.
I love that the guards let the Doctor spread his cloak on the ground before they chained him up.
The Doctor reminisces about the day K'anpo fed him LSD.
Nothing in particular. Just a cool shot.
More LSD-taking. This time in Kronosville.
Baby Benton, yet another pointless plot-twist.
So that's that, then. Lots of rubbish jokes, plot strands that go nowhere, and more daft machinations for the Master. He's great, is the Master. I just wish that the writers were up to the task of showing it. Still, at least none of them have equalled the indignity foisted upon him by Russell T Davies, so there's that to be thankful for.
Back to black and white next, I think. :)
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